What are the important skillsets required for Project Management? To name a few, this typically includes leadership, adaptability, budgeting, risk and resource management—but to chalk it up those few skills would be a disservice to project managers. Ultimately, it’s something that’s hard to sum up in a single paragraph. So, if you want to dip your toes into project management, here are some games that emulate the experience.
Read on to discover 5 video games that play on the principles of project management:
1. SimCity
Initial release date: February 2nd, 1989
Genre: Construction and Management Simulation, City-building
Platforms: -
Developers: Maxis, Tilted Mill Entertainment, Aspyr Media, Full Fat, Infogrames, Nintendo EAD, Babaroga, HAL Laboratory, Track Twenty
The Sims is a well-established franchise of life simulators, most known for the games where you create and control the daily lives of virtual people in the suburbs. However, the game that started it all, was SimCity. In 1989, the city building simulation came to fruition. Multiple other SimCity games were released since then, with the latest addition of the series being the 2014 mobile adaptation, SimCity BuildIt.
How exactly are the games reminiscent of project management? Across all SimCity games, the main objective is to create, develop and maintain a city. This involves planning out infrastructure, ensuring resources are sufficiently managed and distributed, and maintaining balance across sectors to avoid bankruptcy. It’s an intricate system—from the planning transportation systems to fluctuating tax rates, individuals oversee what goes into their land. Unforeseen circumstances can occur, like natural disasters, that has to be put under control. When this is met with failure, it could reflect onto the developments of the city.
Just as how projects can run into issues that cause bottlenecks, so can your city. Therefore, in a broad sense, SimCity is just a giant project. Players have to apply the same principles to manage their city, as they would with a project; initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling.
2. RollerCoaster Tycoon
Initial release date: March 31st, 1999
Genre: Construction and Management Simulation, Simulation
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox, macOS, iOS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Android
Developers: Chris Sawyer, Chris Sawyer Productions, MicroProse
Similar to SimCity, RollerCoaster Tycoon is a series of construction and management simulators. Evidently, it differs in subject. Players are given a blank piece of land and free reign to build any type of amusement park they desire—which includes the customisation of roller coasters, down to their tracks. The first game was released in March 1999, and has been heeded as a classic ever since.
Players are responsible for modifying terrain, building facilities and attractions, hiring staff and keeping customers happy—all with the money they start off with and continue to earn. In order for your park to be and stay successful, the management of resources should be planned wisely. Players have to handle maintenance of their built structures, as well as track the happiness and wellbeing of the independent NPCs of the park. Rides can be too dizzying or priced too high, upsetting customers. Like SimCity, even after your buildings are all built, you need to consistently supervise and maintain your creation to ensure its success.
It’s a test of balance, much like project management! In both circumstances, individuals must learn how to juggle creativity and practicality, to achieve success. Planning without creativity lacks innovation, but creativity without planning could result in a project exceeding budget.
3. Frostpunk
Initial release date: April 24th, 2018
Genre: City-building, Strategy, Business Simulation, Action-Adventure
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now, Xbox One, Mac operating systems
Developer: 11 Bit Studios
This game is set in an alternate history, where players need to build and manage a city amidst an Earth that has frozen over. It’s a notoriously challenging game that has reached commercial success. Initially released in 2018, the game has been met with enough critical acclaim to earn itself a second game, set to be released in 2024.
Players must cultivate a city, not for commercial success, but with the end goal of survival. But survival is not enough to prevent a bad ending—you need to keep your people happy, or else you’ll be overthrown or killed by the citizens you have kept alive. To do this, players must manage resources like food and power, or conduct research on machinery to make processes more efficient.
However, unique to this list, Frostpunk has players tread the fine lines of in-game politics. Enact laws that borders on morally ambiguous—the choices you make dictate whether your governing is militaristic or theocratic leaning. Similarly, project management oftentimes forces managers to make tough decisions, to meet collective goals in the grand scheme of things.
4. Fallout Shelter
Initial release date: June 14th, 2015
Genre: Role-playing Game, Construction and Management Simulation, Simulation
Platforms: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
Developer: Behaviour Interactive, Bethesda Game Studios
Most games in the Fallout franchise are open world action-adventures. However, Fallout Shelter is especially different. Sure Fallout 1 is dissimilar to Fallout New Vegas, seeing as how the former is turn-based and in a trimetric perspective, while the latter has real-time combat and includes varying perspectives. But this particular game does not share the same story-driven system as its peers—it’s a free-to-play construction and management simulator.
In Fallout Shelter, players must build rooms in their vault to house dwellers, produce energy, filter water and distribute food. This ant farm view game demands near constant attention. As real time passes, even when the application is not open, resources can drain. In order to efficiently manage resources, players have to allocate vault dwellers to jobs according to their individual stats.
This idea is similar to how project management runs in reality. Resources aren’t limited to budgets, tools or time—but people too. A team should consist of people with different skillsets, that can cover their respective responsibilities effectively.
5. Subnautica
Initial release date: December 16th, 2014
Genre: Action-Adventure, Survival
Platforms: macOS, Windows, PlayStation, 4Xbox One, Nintendo, Switch, PlayStation, 5Xbox, Series X/S
Developers: Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Shiny Shoe, Panic Button Games, Grip Digital
While this may be the most outlandish example in this list, Subnautica does comprise of numerous aspects of project management. But firstly, what is Subnautica?
The game is an action-adventure survival game, set in an alien oceanic planet called 4546B. Players assume the role of a spaceship crash survivor and have the liberty to explore wrecks, deserted alien laboratories, islands and countless aquatic biomes. 4546B is vast, with much to offer. But it can be noted quite early in the game, that the waters of 4546B is not as innocuous as it may first appear. Bonesharks, warpers, and diverse leviathans are scattered throughout numerous locations of the planet.
Much like a project, the game has a clear progression path—but it is important to note that players are not forced to follow it and are allowed free reign on the planet. Circling back to the topic at hand, after enough exploration, players will soon realise that the local fauna is ailed with bacteria that they too are infected by—and the abandoned, yet advanced technology of planet will not let them escape without a cure. Therefore, the playthrough unfolds like so; create a vaccine, build a rocket and escape. This must be done, all while coordinating the management of resources for the sake of survival.
Overview
Project management is a concept that can be translated onto fictional pieces of work, as established. More often than not, strategy plays a big part in games, a similarity shared with this topic. But those games in particular are the most comparable with coordination in corporate contexts. Evidently, video games aren’t limited to mindless action—while those are still valid pieces of work! Author Bio
From Malaysia, Leia Emeera is a writer at TESSR, and a published author. She has been putting pen to paper ever since she learned how to, and has an anthology to her name, titled 'Ten'. Leia loves music, games and her beloved Labrador Retriever, George. She aims to further her studies in English Literature and Creative Writing the moment her gap year ends. 'Till then, you will find her sitting behind a desk, writing with TESSR.
Connect with her on LinkedIn: Leia Emeera
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